KYIV, Dec. 12 – Audio tapes allegedly linking President Kuchma to the September disappearance of journalist Georgy Gongadze, have changed a rating measuring the influence level of Ukraine’s top political figures, a Tuesday Interfax report said.
According to a poll, conducted monthly among 50 experts by the Kyiv center for political research and conflict studies, shows that in November, Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz, who was the first to publicize the infamous tapes, moved up to fifth position from his previously held 28th one month ago.
But the first four places of the rating continue to be occupied by the same group of politicians as in October, with President Kuchma holding on to first place, while head of the presidential administration Volodymyr Lytvyn, also implicated by the audio recordings in the Gongadze scandal, taking fourth.
The rating’s second and third places were taken by Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko and first deputy speaker Viktor Medvedchuk, respectively.
General Prosecutor Mykhailo Potebenko, took a top-ten position in the rating for the first time in November.
Although Interior Minister Yur Kravchenko, also implicated in the affair of the missing journalist, dropped half a point, but nevertheless maintained the same, seventh position that he did a month ago.
Leonid Derkach, head of the Security Service, took an identical drop in the rating, causing his position to fall by four places to 13.
